NHS pays historic £20mn to compensate medical fault
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has been ordered to pay a historic sum of £20 million to a young woman who has suffered for more than 18 years as a result of medical negligence which took place when she was a baby.
British media reported on Monday that the unidentified teenager would receive a lump sum of £2.1 million and annual payments of £203,000 for the rest of her life as a compensation for negligence in the University hospital of Wales in Cardiff in February 2000 when she was starved of oxygen.
The oxygen starvation resulted in catastrophic brain injuries in the baby while she also developed complications at five months old when doctors tried to correct a malformed esophagus in an operation.
A judge ruled last month that doctors at the NHS facility had failed to adequately ventilate the baby before and after her respiratory arrest.
Justice Robert Harrison of the high court in the Welsh capital announced the financial settlement against Cardiff and Vale University health board on Monday.
The medical facility in Wales declined to comment on the verdict. A member of the defense team representing the teenager said the ruling was fair as the medical fault had deprived the defendant of her future.
“This is a tragic case of a little girl, with her whole life ahead of her, having her future snatched away from her through no fault of her own,” said Yvonne Agnew, the head of clinical negligence at lawyers Slater and Gordon in Cardiff, adding, “We have had to fight for years to get justice for our client and to get the trust to admit their failings.”
The total compensation awarded to the young woman would amount to £19,774,265 given her life expectancy. The sum is the highest compensation payout ever made by the NHS over negligence of its medical staff.
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